I think that Bushman is exactly right there. As Ryan points out, these bills have little to do with controlling health care costs, and, indeed, are highly likely to greatly expand them through giving subsidies to a large percentage of the population, as well as decreasing competition in the health insurance market. Rather, this is a socialist power grab, with the government grabbbing control of some 1/6 of the economy.

You can tell that this is the case, since the Democrats really don't care what is being passed, but rather, just that it is being passed. They ignore the trillions that it will cost, and whether or not choice is lost, but abortions are gained. What is important to them is that some form of socialized medicine is in place before this Congress ends, and they lose their chance for the next generation (or two at this rate).

And the libtards here will be parroting the same in short order - that it is more important to pass something, than to get it right, even if a mistake here costs trillions in dollars and innumerable lives.

In all honesty I think the Democrats are in full blown denial that we're hanging on the edge of a complete meltdown of our credit rating. The alternative is that they are fully aware that we are on the brink and are doing their damndest to push us over the edge.

The general sense of the article is that the only reason that abortion is an issue in the Senate bill is because in the rush to pass it, massive midnight rewriting accidentally dropped the abortion restriction for community health organizations (which MJ claims have never performed abortions - but doesn't explain why they might not, if that were the only way to get federally funded abortions).

But how many other holes are there in these 2,000+ page bills written in the middle of the night over a very short time frame? My guess is a lot.

The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.It's time to start cashing them in.For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

There's no way this incomparably cynical and corrupt enterprise -- this nakedly unapologetic power grab -- survives the immediate, inevitable constitutional challenge, should it (by some chthonic miracle) pass.

Either way, however: the jackboot political left in this country are busily ensuring their own micro-minority status, at both the state and federal level, for the length of an entire generation with this club-footed kabuki.

If the Democrats are so sure that the American public wants this bill then why don't they-in effect- let the electorate vote up or down on the Health Care Bill?

We're a Republic not a nation that legislates by plebiscite. In essence the elctorate has 'voted' through demonstrations, town halls and writing their electe representatives. I would say the message from the great unwashed is pretty clear otherwise this would have been a done deal a long time ago.

Basically what they are doing is pretty damn non-democratic for a party that calls itself-Democrat.

Par for the course for a Party that generally thinks the majority of the electorate are ignorant of what is in their best interest and that's why smart people like Pelosi and Reid are there to ensure we don't hurt ourselves.

Rather hard to not be a paternalistic pol when you're ideology is based upon the premise that the average Joe Q. Citizen can't wipe his ass without a government funded and approved instruction manual.

I know what Ryan's about. He sees the cutting of taxes on capital gains, etc., as way to ensure economic growth -- an engine that generates tax revenues far more aggressively in the long term than raising taxes.

The CBPP disagrees. Since they disagree with Ryan's revenue projections, they disagree with the his deficit targets.

This is pretty boilerplate stuff. Obama wants the same benefit of the economic growth projections, with far less justification. Rosy projections of economic growth makes it so much easier to bet the farm on raising chinchillas.

Personally, I could go without Ryan's tax cuts for the rich. I don't care enough, though the economic arguments against capital gains taxes and the AMT are quite sound. I'm also not crying when the Bush Tax Cuts expire.

But I also have no patience with scare stories about "slashing" benefits from the folks who are backing Obama's health-care plan. We're talking about six years of benefits from ten years of taxes, based on economic growth projections and hypothetical cuts in the growth of Medicare that no one takes seriously.

Democratic lawmakers should be mindful of the Ben Nelson experience. With Ben Nelson, he saw that the health bill was a net negative for his state so he was going to vote against it until they offered the corn-husker kickback. That changed his vote. Yet, now after getting his vote they have annouced they are reneging on the cornhusker kickback because the kickback is hurting them politically. Now Obama and the leaders are making all kinds of new promises to swing voters to get the bill passed. I wonder how many of these promises they intend to keep once the bill is passed.......